Posts by Francisco Blaha
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
As non native english speaker scientist, I need to pay an editor to go over my work when publishing in English. While there is a "parallel" spanish published scientific "wold" is much smaller, and crucially minimally funded in comparison. However I think there is merit in at least be aware of how difficult is to wrote conceptually in a different language outside english, perhaps this allows to simplify the english writing of native speakers as to make it more accessible to non native readers. (loving this tread!)
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I grow up with my mum speaking spanish to me, my dad german and everyone else in the village spoke Guarani (Uruguay, Paraguay are guarani words). I'm very thankful for that. A study I read about some years ago compared learning languages to partitioning a hard drive and installing a new operating system. it said that the 1st partition is the most challenging, but every one after it becomes easier. I'm a self employed fisheries biologist able to work in 4 languages at the present, and while I never used guarani outside the village, many of its grammatical structures I found very similar to polynesian languages. When you learn a language as a kid you also learn a "different way of thinking" about the same things in your standard language, and that makes you curious and enhances your critical thinking. And that can only be good!
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awesome...
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try more exercise during the day and/or a small joint prior bed... discontinue if it condition does not improves!
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hi Rich: he was critical of foreigners (like me) working with Maori on aquaculture issues.
But basically he passed the feeling that everyone else besides him was inferior and non-deserving of being here.
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I never had any personal deal with Mallard so I cannot comment on the guy, but I had to endure a flight from Wellington to Auckland with Henare and the guy is a nasty piece of work, he was so condescending, arrogant and up his role (besides being pissed)... some of his words to me are the closest to racism that I have experienced in my 12 years in NZ (I’m from Argentina... go figure).
It was quite shocking for me, because at that time i was helping set up a iwi based oyster farm up north with some of the coolest and loveliest people ever... and this guy was just a fool
So it does not surprises me that someone hit him... the whole incident remained me to the headbut from Zidane to that Italian in the football world cup final... completely out of place and senseless... but good’n’him...
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It makes anyone sad when innocent lives are lost... but It saddens me more (and found it very hypocritical), that all media (and we as public) makes a huge issue of this incident, when EVERY day almost the same amount of innocent lives are lost in Iraq, and almost no one mentions it anymore... are they lives not worth the same?
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very good interview to Dawkins by Kim Hill in the RadioNZ site
http://www.radionz.co.nz/nr/programmes/saturday/20061216Beyond the existence of god or not, is just great to see people thinking about it, and the power we give religious notions. Love the example about why is ok to label a child as catholic, but is not ok the say he is a postmodernist.